


No Harm, He's Armed

by Vicepresidents



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:22:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicepresidents/pseuds/Vicepresidents
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the one where they're not actually living in a Taylor Swift music video but sort of already are</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Harm, He's Armed

Prologue

 

Only Harry knows.

Harry knows that Zayn is pretty handy with a pen. He’s known it since the day Zayn chucked a pencil eraser out his room, the sound of rubber hitting the glass pane of Harry’s window with a dull _thunk_. Harry remembers looking up from his Trig homework and having to wipe his glasses over the hem of his sweater like a fucking cliche because that’s the new kid (and new next-door neighbor, apparently) with the motorcycle and the eyelashes holdingup a sheet of paper, deft bold lines spelling out ‘ _ARE YOU LISTENING TO THE STROKES?’_

That’s how it started, Harry knows.He knows him and Zayn aren’t friends, at least not in school. Harry knows the politics of how teenagers operate and how there are invisible lines drawn in no matter how people say that the times have changed. Harry knows that someone who looks like Zayn shouldn’t be into sci-fi or comic books or Japanese graphic novels. Harry knows his chinos and his sweater-vests shouldn’t have a place in the life of a Zayn Malik. Yet every night or so, he’d peer out his window pressing a page of his graphing notebook against the glass and wait for Zayn to click his Sharpie marker closed and hold up his reply:

_AGREED. THEY LOST ME IN ‘FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE EARTH’_

_I HAVEN’T READ MUCH OF DC BUT I LIKE BATMAN WELL ENOUGH'_

_RINGO. DEFINITELY RINGO._

_I SPRAINED MY ANKLE WHEN I WAS EIGHT ‘CAUSE OF A LIGHTSABER DUEL WITH MY COUSIN._

_YOU’RE CRAZY. MATT TONG. HANDS DOWN._

This is the Zayn that Harry came to know and and all he had to do was look out his window. This, so far, is what he knows:

Harry knows that the just-fell-out-of-bed look Zayn sports every day is a result of much more fussing than Zayn leads on and actually takes up the better part of his morning. He knows what Zayn’s hair looks like when it’s sleep mussed and soft-looking and he wonders why Zayn even bothers with hair gel.He knows that Zayn wears glasses. But unlike Harry who’s practically unrecognizable without his bifocals, Zayn only ever dons his pair first thing in the morning when he pads to the bathroom and puts his contact lenses on.

Harry knows that the last thing Zayn does before going to bed is turn the lights off and plug in his nightlight. He also knows that the nights he can’t make out the faint glow of light through Zayn’s curtains are the fitful nights Zayn spends wide awake until dawn. He frowns whenever he sees Zayn bring a plate of food up to his room because Harry knows those are the evenings Zayn’s mum and dad spend more time screaming than eating during dinner.

Harry knows when it’s bad. He knows it when Zayn reaches an arm in the gap between the wall and the head of his bed and comes up clutching a sketchbook, deeply creased and yellowing with age. Harry doesn’t know what Zayn spends hours drawing on it, but he knows enough that those are the evenings he’d might as well shut his blinds and leave Zayn to himself.

Harry likes to think he knows the boy underneath the leather jacket a little bit more than most people. But there are times, mostly the times Harry lifts his blinds and sees shadows moving across the drawn curtains of Zayn’s window, when he wishes he knew more. If he’s being honest, he wishes he knew all that is there to know. But what Harry knows, what Harry hopes, is that what he knows is enough. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> title from Trying Your Luck by The Strokes.
> 
> originally posted on my old side-blog [here](http://vicepresidents-has-moved.tumblr.com/post/55871636549/title-no-harm-hes-armed-prompt-kind)
> 
> this was meant to remain as a one-off written on a whim in response to an anon on Tumblr who had some feelings she/he wanted to share about nerd Harry and popular boy Zayn during the time we were all introduced to human donut Harry Styles as Marcel the Marketing guy. but If I'm being honest, this tiny universe I created half a month ago in my head never left my thoughts so I'm soldiering on as best as I can to try and tell you their story.


End file.
